Hallmark Channel’s countdown to the holidays comes in the form of a never-ending stream of movies. They’re always super corny, kind of relatable but addictive nonetheless. But there’s also a lot of them.
The Wall Street Journal calculated that the network has produced about 136 holiday films since 2008 -- there’s 37 new originals just this year, after all. However way you slice it, that’s a lot of movies.
Now, a lot of us are pro-hibernation and will happily take up couch space for multiple hours a day powering through these feel-good movies. But for others who have sh*t to do (can’t relate), there’s the Deck the Hallmark podcast. Three men have taken it upon themselves to review this year’s new releases, because apparently they have even less sh*t to do than everyone else this holiday season.
The premise is simple: “Just three dudes…watching Hallmark. What could go wrong?” the show’s description reads. Sounds good enough to me.
They started back in June with reviews and bonus episodes, but their first official review was for “Christmas at Pemberley Manor,” which they’ve described as “a great way to get the Christmas juices flowing.”
Should be a good run.
The guys go by Bran, Panda and Dan (Brandon Gray, Daniel Pandolph and Daniel Thompson), where one claims to love Hallmark movies (Gray), one hates them (Thompson) and one is contentedly ambivalent (Pandolph). They say it started as a way to spend more time with friends -- don’t they all? -- and now they’re up to tens of thousands of listeners.
The men will also be featuring guest hosts made up of Hallmark Channel alum, and who’s their dream guest? “Candace Cameron Bure, obviously!” Same. Gray is even hoping to try his hand at writing for one of these films at some point.
Mazel tov, guys!